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4/10/2012 @ 4:18PM51,962 views

Happiest People More Likely To Drop Out of School, Earn Less Money

Many people presume that those who drop out of school must be desultory losers, right? Not so, according to Marta Zaraska, who reported in her April 2 Washington Post article, “Too Much Happiness Can Make You Unhappy,” that “excessive joy, or having lots of positive emotions and a relative absence of negative ones … may hamper your career prospects.”

According to Zaraska, “Psychologist Edward Diener … and his colleagues analyzed a variety of studies … and discovered that those who early in their lives reported the highest life satisfaction … years later reported lower income than those who felt slightly less merry when young. What’s more, they dropped out of school earlier. Included in the studies was one involving a group of American college freshmen that in 1976 claimed to be very cheerful. Surveyed again when they were in their late 30s, they earned, on average, almost $3,500 a year less than their slightly less cheerful peers. Why? Diener suggests that people who don’t experience much sadness or anxiety are rarely dissatisfied with their jobs and therefore feel less pressure to get more education or change careers.”

Note to self: spend less time writing Forbes column in seclusion, more time with friends and family. Warning to friends and family: expect manic burst of Crotty social engagement in coming months.

For my money, however, Diener’s most notable contribution has been to debunk common happiness myths. Regardless of standard of living or cultural or racial homogeneity, Diener found that “collectivist” nations were far happier than “individualist” nations like the U.S. because collectivist nations were more willing to make do with what they had. Those who relentlessly pursue individual excellence or perfection are not as happy, noted Diener.

Moreover, Diener discovered that, after one’s basic needs are met, wealth does not increase happiness either. Ditto for youth, marriage, sunlight, religion, and even pleasure in all its incarnations.

Most germane to this column, however, Diener found that neither a high IQ nor higher education correlate with high rates of happiness.

Ever the contrarian, I naturally posited alternate causalities. First, perhaps extra happy students see the futility in conventional schooling and are, thus, more likely to drop out to pursue their own dreams. Famous college dropouts, such as Microsoft‘s Bill Gates and Apple‘s Steve Jobs, come to mind. Or perhaps extra happy students are unwilling to bow to educational authority or to the allegedly oppressive nature of public schooling, as noted by Crotty guest columnist Cevin Soling in “Santorum And Harvard Anarchist Agree: Public Schools Must Be Abolished.”

Moreover, there is an inherent conundrum presented by Diener and his “positive psychology” compatriots: how do we square this country’s crying need for highly educated workers with research about not only what makes people happy but with what very happy people empirically prefer to do?

I presented the conundrum to Dr. Diener himself, who generously replied, “It is important to note that happier people in general do better than unhappy people — in health, successful outcomes, and especially social relationships. Unhappy people do not do as well. So, what the studies are primarily comparing is the very happy to the happy and slightly happy. We find that the very happy tend to be champions of the social world — very outgoing. In our studies, the happiest people on average did slightly worse in college, but did well in terms of income out in the business world. Social skills are important in the business world, even very important. The slightly happy and happy can sometimes achieve more in certain realms, such as academic success in college, because they are moderately social, not super-social. However, we don’t want people to think the unhappy or depressed do fine. They usually do significantly worse on average. And the toll on health is considerable. We just want people to know that if you are moderately happy, that may be good enough. You don’t have to be super-happy to do well in life.”

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Feeling happy or sad is for the children. More important is to have goals , purpose and discovering your needs as a human being. There is the problem most people don’t know there basic needs. Were all intellectual entities that need some form of intellectual pleasure and stimulation to avoid the enemy of the mind which is boredom . Our minds need to have fun and enjoyment through work, recreation, entertainment ,education etc. Most important of all we need to find psychological happiness through each other. Its very simple if you don’t give your body what it needs it gets sick, same thing with your mind. If you don’t give it what it needs your mind will get sick. The right job, friends , hobbies , goals etc.

I’m glad your happy in your world. Do you know that reality is just a perception in your brain? You have created an artificial world for the purpose of being in control. The feeling of knowing it all is what you seek, to cover up what I am not sure(only your subconscious knows). All I actually ask of you, before you return to your world, is to look up the theme of the phrases you use. If you had wisdom to spread you would be able to explain it. After all “that which can’t be simply explained is not thoroughly understood.”

One from today’s Wall Street Journal that discusses in great detail how emotional trauma damages cells, leading to depression: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304587704577333941351135910.html

And here’s a link to the allegedly Happiest Man in the World: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/08/the-happiest-man-in-the-w_n_833098.html

More education? I’m there, too: 52 and pursuing a Ph.D. Happy? I’d say I’m largely satisfied with where I am in my life. I think happiness is a by-product, not an end goal, and satisfaction with one’s accomplishments and experiences in life can lead to… happiness. I think that’s implicit in Crotty’s questionnaire. But there are world views that can disrupt that connection, that suppress satisfaction by insisting that there is another, higher peak to climb, no time to pause and experience that sense of satisfaction in today’s job well done.

Is there a relationship between education and happiness? I’d say that more education can expose one to more about which to be unhappy, but can also empower one to make a difference and experience satisfaction from one’s contribution. It’s been long said that ignorance is bliss… and if your ambitions are more modest, that sense of satisfaction is more easily achieved.

“Included in the studies was one involving a group of American college freshmen that in 1976 claimed to be very cheerful. Surveyed again when they were in their late 30s, they earned, on average, almost $3,500 a year less than their slightly less cheerful peers. Why? Diener suggests that people who don’t experience much sadness or anxiety are rarely dissatisfied with their jobs and therefore feel less pressure to get more education or change careers.”

I wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion so fast. People with high-paying careers usually majored in something difficult/stressful, and I’d bet that college freshman with difficult/stressful majors report being less cheerful than freshman that are less stressed. I’d like to see the data for that study.